Importing Personal Furniture

[Crush]

I have a friend that wants to know if he can import his furniture from USA to Thailand , including a Plasma TV. Will he have to pay tax on the items?

He is US citizen. Anyone with any direct experience of this?

Cheers.

[p1p]

Why??

Electronic equipment imported from the US tends to blow up unless stepdown transformers etc. are used. Much AV equipment will not work anyway, being NTSC rather than the PAL we use here.

Regarding the importation. The cost & ease or difficulty will be vert dependant on visa status, among other things.

Thailand manufactures a lot of furniture for the US and other export markets. Prices are consequently much lower here for the same items you mught pay a fortune for at home.

I imported all my household effects and regret it. I wish I had disposed of most of my things at home before I moved. If I did it again, I would bring less than 20% of the things I imported.

[phormio]

I imported all my household effects and regret it. I wish I had disposed of most of my things at home before I moved. If I did it again, I would bring less than 20% of the things I imported.

Moving to Thailand from the US soon(on a Non-Imm O Thai Wife visa). The question is, what's in the 15% or so that you,in-retrospect, think was worth shipping in?

[p1p]

I have a fairly large collection of books and music in various formats and there are a few items of great sentimental value. Apart from those, just my chefs' knives and various pieces of specialist cooking equipment plus much of my clothing, (I am somewhat larger than Thai shops stock for!) The computer could have stayed, I would just bring the hard disk. Other than that, I think everything could have been disposed ofm rather than brought here,

[Martin_F]

I suggest that you use your wife to import the stuff as her personal effects.

This is a lot easier than a non Thai importing them.

[p1p]

I suggest that you use your wife to import the stuff as her personal effects.

This is a lot easier than a non Thai importing them.

Makes little difference if he is coming in as a married man, (to a Thai.)

[Crush]

Will tax have to be paid on personal items?

[dr_Pat_Pong]

I have a friend that wants to know if he can import his furniture from USA to Thailand , including a Plasma TV. Will he have to pay tax on the items?

He is US citizen. Anyone with any direct experience of this?

Cheers.

Is this guy planning to retire here or ? His age might help a bit..

[Dah fahrang]

Recent personal experience;

Age, married to Thai status don't matter one bit.

I am 53, and moved In June, with Thai wife (on Thai passoprt) to Thailand to retire. My wife has full Thai passport, ID card, tabien baan - the lot.

We shipped a limited amount (200 cu ft) of personal USED household effects, mostly of sentimental value, all well over 12months old and all used.

We used a shipping agent from UK to Bangkok, providing 'door to door' service, which includes clearing goods with customs.

Customs web site states that returning Thai residents are permitted to bring in used goods (one of each item) free of tax or duty. When the shipment arrived, ewe provided all relevant documents to our agent ( a big company, Translink Express) who presented same documents to the first of three Customs Departments. That customs officer deemed my wife was not a returning Thai resident as she did not have a foreign vias in her Thai passport (we provided both her UK and Thai passports, together with irrefutable prooof of her living in the UK continuously for 11 years) although she did have entry and exit stamps from each previos brief visit. No movement there then. We argued, spoke to customs direct, but deafness prevailed.

In the end, having scrutinsed the bill of lading, they pointed out we had a lot of garden tools (old power hedge clipper, two spades, two garden forks and a tree lopper), carpets (fifteen year old Pakistani carpet) and they would levy a tax charge of 7000 baht. The customs man said he would help us, and allow the goods in as a returning Thai tourist. He didn't want to know about his own department's web site - not the rules as printed in English and Thai. No foreign visa in Thai passport, no returning resident.! (But Immigration ---- never mind Immigration - this is Customs.

The agent proved spineless, although in every other respect their service was good. We paid the B7000, or faced a mounting wharfeage charge.

The moral of the tale;

1. However perfect your paperwork, expect the run around;

2. expect to pay something - tea money under a different guise, even with receipt issued!

Good luck. Let me know if you get your household goods through, and how much you pay!

[Thaicoon]

Me to want to bring a 20 footer to Thailand, built the pad 5 years ago, so now want to bring some furniture to Thailand, no electric goods as i know you are taxed on them, got most in the house already, I mostly have chinese furniture, a big leather corner sofa, a couple of chesterfeilds, and also some very nice thai furniture which i bought at the rosewood room in Pattaya a few years ago, not knowing i would be getting hitched and building in thailand, so hopefully the thai furniture is coming home, also got a lot of oils, anybody know about the tax on these items, they are all over 10 years old but like new. and i will put them in my wifes name.